The Net Neutrality Debate: both sides of the fence

The future of the Internet may be determined in large part by the outcome of the Net Neutrality debate. As Congress drafts new telecommunication legislation it will consider whether to adopt mandatory net neutrality principles. The outcome of this legislation may drastically alter our online experience.

What is Net Neutrality?

Although there does not seem to be one widely accepted definition, a policy statement adopted by the FCC in 2005 outlines four principles commonly considered to fall under the heading of Net Neutrality: 1) consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice; 2) consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice; 3) consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and 4) consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers (May and Lenard, 2006). The Net Neutrality debate revolves around the central question of whether regulations should be imposed in order to keep the Internet open and free from control and discrimination by broadband providers such as telephone and cable companies.

An Internet free of regulations vs. regulations to keep the Internet free

Opponents of Net Neutrality

Those opposed to having net neutrality signed into law include broadband providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast among others. These companies argue that they have made great expenditures “extending fiber-optic cable and other infrastructure to carry today’s much faster broadband Internet” (Clemmitt, 2006). As a result they feel entitled to offer preferential treatment in the form of faster service to those customers able to afford and willing to pay an extra fee. Without net neutrality laws they would also be able to discriminate by assigning priority to their own content and services over those offered by competitors. In a 2005 Business Week interview, Edward Whitacre, then CEO of SBC Communications Inc. (now AT&T), expressed the following when asked if he was concerned about competition from companies like Google and Vonage:

How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. . . .So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts! (2005)

Whitacre and others in the broadband industry as well as advocacy groups such as Hands Off the Internet also argue that up to this point the government has had minimal involvement in regulating the Internet and that its trajectory should be left to competitive market forces that benefit consumers and are “typically not fair and nondiscriminatory” and therefore at odds with the principles of net neutrality (Lenard and Scheffman, 2006).

Proponents of Net Neutrality

Supporters of net neutrality include many web-based companies including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and eBay as well as groups such as the SavetheInternet.com Coalition coordinated by Free Press. These supporters argue that the architecture that has governed the Internet since its inception has been open and nondiscriminatory. Vinton Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist for Google and one of the co-founders of the Internet expressed the following concerns at a Senate Committee hearing on Network Neutrality:

The Internet’s open, neutral architecture has proven to be an enormous engine for market innovation, economic growth, social discourse, and the free flow of ideas. . . .Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success. (2006)

Cerf and others argue that companies like Google and Yahoo could not have innovated and ascended had the network been discriminatory and limiting. Proponents are concerned that allowing broadband providers the ability to control the speed of service will mean that “only wealthy individuals and companies would get higher speed service leaving poorer, non-commercial users and start-up businesses in slower moving cyber obscurity” (Clemmitt, 2006). In their view, this reinforces preexisting class divisions and threatens the Internet’s ability to serve democracy.

No matter what side of the fence you are one, one thing is for certain: it’s a heated debate.

References

Cerf, G. V. (2006). U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Hearing on "Network Neutrality."

Clemmitt, M. (2006). Controlling the Internet: Can it survive as an uncensored global network? CQ Researcher, 16 (18), 409-432.

Lenard, M. T. & May, J. R. (2006). Net Neutrality or Net Neutering:Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated? New York: Springer Science.

Lendard, M. T. & Scheffman T. D. (2006). Distribution, Vertical Integration and The Net Neutrality Debate. In T.M. Lenard & R.J. May, Net Neutrality or Net Neutering:Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated? New York: Springer Science.